Chapter Two

Veronica

“WAIT. LET ME GET this right. You just left?” she asked, and if I weren’t as sad as I was, I would have giggled at her bug-eyed expression.

“Yes.”

“Wait, I have to be missing something. This can’t be right.” She looked like she wanted to bust up laughing or shake me. “You can’t be serious.”

“Joanna,” I warned

“No. I’m being serious. Let me get this straight. Roland Baxter asked you to move in with him after however long of seeing you be nauseatingly cheery. Then he had the audacity to take you to the Wild Animal Park, where he booked you a hot air balloon thing you mentioned was on your bucket list, nonetheless, and you just left?”

“Jo—“

“Did I miss something?” she asked, and I swallowed hard

“He was going to end it, Joey.”

“He was? You know this for sure? You read where he wrote it in his diary?”

“I could tell,” I mumbled, ignoring her comment about Rolly having a diary. “He was working his way up to it. I—“

“Bock-bock-booock!” Joanna, my youngest sister, stood with her hands under her pits as she walked around her bedroom like a chicken. When she was done, she shook her head, placed a dramatic hand over her well-endowed chest, and continued, “I have no idea what overcame me, so you were saying you chickened out and…?”

“I did not chicken out of anything.”

“Liar!” She wasn’t one to have a filter. Never had been.

“What would have been the point?”

“The point of sticking around?” She scratched her chin. “Maybe talking it out. Find out what was going on with him.”

“I knew what he was going to say.” I did. I could tell. “Something’s been off with him. He’s… I don’t know. Hesitant around me.”

“Hesitant?” She rolled her eyes. “Why not just ask? Or talk to him. If I were in your shoes, what would you tell me?”

“It’s not the same. Jo… I love him.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“I know.”

“What? How?”

“Babe, haven’t you seen yourself in a mirror since you started bumping uglies with each other?”

“Jo, would you ever not act like a twelve-year-old?”

“I hope not.” She smirked. “Believe it or not, I’m the epitome of professionalism at work. You wouldn’t even recognize me.”

“So, will you?” I pressed, changing the subject, resting my head in her shoulder.

“Will I what?”

“Go get my things from his place?” I watched her serious resting-bitch-face expression melt into a fit of giggles. One so obnoxious she couldn’t seem to control it as tears rolled down her face. I, on the other hand, wasn’t amused.

“I’m serious,” I mumbled, and I swear her laughter rang louder. I fell back and rested my head on the throw pillow that matched my mood. It read, I like my coffee black. To match my soul.

“Where did you even find this?” I muttered.

“You’re just envious of my unique style.”

“Unique is definitely a way to describe it,” I said under my breath because I was asking her to do me a favor, after all.

“You seriously just left him standing there?”

“He let me leave for a reason, Jo.”

“Well, when you come in contact with a lunatic, you usually do.”

“Jo,” I groaned. “Please.” I whined.

I was pathetic. I was a thirty-something-year-old woman, not a hopeless teenaged romantic. I knew how childishly I was acting, but it was allowed when it was with your sister. And honestly, I couldn’t help it. Rolly had taken my heart and soul, and the idea of it being over cut so deep it was a surprise my insides hadn’t made a trail from the zoo to Jo’s place.

“Ronnie, I love you. Talking seriously right now, you know I would do anything for you.” She stroked the top of my head, and I knew in my gut I wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “I’ll help you move everything after you talk it out with him.”

“Joey,” I groaned.

“I’m sorry, Rons, but I think we both know it’s important. Plus, just leaving him like that, you know that wasn’t cool. I wouldn’t even do that.”

“He let me leave,” I complained, fully knowing she was right. I hated when my baby sister was right.

“Christmas is right around the corner,” Jo pointed out, and I nodded. “You can stay in the spare room until the new year if you’re right and he was going to break up with you. Looking for a place right now would be a headache you don’t need. I’ll even ask Dean if we can borrow his truck.” Dean? Interesting.

“You guys good?” I asked, trying not to sound like I wanted to know all the details. My beautiful sister held back a lot.

“I haven’t left him standing in the middle of a zoo, so you know, I can’t complain.” She winked, and I coughed away a laugh. Joanna was always good for a laugh. She was amazing and sweet and funny.

“I love you, kid,” I sapped, my eyes stinging all over again. No wonder Rolly didn’t think I was for him. He was the epitome of holding every emotion and feeling inside while I wore my heart on my sleeve.

“You don’t have to talk to him today.” She sighed. “You can borrow some of my clothes and crash here tonight. Just don’t stretch out my socks with your big feet,” she joked before she hugged me. “How about takeout and a gory, nasty slasher movie?” she teased as she stood up from her bed. I squished my face. I was a lot of things, but gory slasher movies weren’t for me.

“Hallmark movie?” I suggested, just like she knew I would. Instead of arguing, she made a show of rolling her eyes before she winked and smiled.

“You’re such a marshmallow. How are we related?”

“That’s so mean, Jojo. You know you have a secret marshmallow side.”

“Whatever. Fine, sappy Hallmark movies it is. Get up, go shower, and get dressed.”

“Jo?” I called out before she walked out of her room.

“Yeah?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Why are you so sure he wasn’t going to break up with me?”

“The same way I know you love him.” She shrugged. “He loves you.”

“He doesn’t really believe in love.”

“Ronnie, that might have been true… before you.”

“I don’t know about that,” I mumbled as I stood up.

“You honestly haven’t seen the way he looks at you?” she asked with a sound of wonder in her voice that was so clear I stilled and looked her way.

“What do you mean?” I dared asking, my heart picking up speed in my chest.

“Veronica, Roland looks at you like you hung the stars.”

Roland

“What happened, man?” Travis patted my back before he sat down on the couch across from me. I watched his shaggy blond hair fall back as he tossed a throw pillow behind his head.

A throw pillow Veronica had added to the couch.

I glanced around. Her stamp was everywhere. She’d made my house a home.

And I’d screwed it up.

“She broke it off,” I muttered before drinking what was left of my second beer. “Or I think she did.” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what the fuck had happened.

One moment, we were in line, and the next she was walking away from me. All I knew for sure was, I was an idiot for having let her go.

“You think?” Travis asked, raising a heavy brow. Fuck, I’d said the last out loud.

“Travis,” I warned, very well knowing where my best friend was going with this.

“I told you.” He shook his head and sighed, drinking his water.

“Shut up,” I grunted, widening my legs and resting my elbows on my knees.

“You’re right,” I muttered. “You told me to tell her. To be open. And I…” A groan escaped. “I fucked it up, didn’t I?” I looked at my life-long friend, who knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.

“You just need to talk to her,” he said, like it was an easy fix. I could swear the asshole was ready to smile. But he didn’t see her. He didn’t see how cut she was. Devasted. Hurt. I’d done that.

“She’s the one, huh?” Travis asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Yes.” Without a doubt, she was the one. More than I could have ever imagined. More than Minnie.

“Look, I know shit with Minnie was … Well, it was what it was. But Veronica isn’t Minnie.”

“I know that.” I did.

Veronica had her head on straight and not hiding a big secret that led SWAT busting down our door in the middle of the night. I’d found out my wife wasn’t actually an accountant working from home. She’d kept the books, alright, to her fucking suburban drug empire.

“I think you know what you have to do, Rolls.” He stood up and patted my shoulder. “You need my help, you got my number, okay?”

“Yeah,” I grunted before adding, “Thanks.”

“You know I got you,” he called as he reached the front door. “Big gesture time, man. Balls out.”

“Balls out,” I repeated as the door closed, and I looked around my home.

Our home.

That’s what she had made it. A home. A house that was more than a place to lay our heads at the end of the day. I looked around. The thick beer stains on the shelves she’d picked up because it would keep my beer cooler. Picture frames of us together. Not only us, but with friends and family. Throw blankets tossed over the couch for me to throw over us when we cuddled and she got a chill.

In less than two months of living under the same roof, she’d made it our home.

But it wouldn’t be if I didn’t get her back. The question was how?

With that in mind, at that very moment, the TV changed from the game to something else. Veronica must have scheduled something to watch tonight. As I grabbed the control from the coffee table, my eye caught the Hallmark channel logo. Of course, she’d scheduled this. I took my seat and found myself not immediately changing the channel. Her little sister, Joanna, had texted Veronica was with her, and I wondered if she was watching this. The idea of doing the same thing even if we were apart made me breathe a little easier. Minutes rolled by with the cheesy but predictable storyline, and I kept watching. I found myself intrigued by the holiday movie.

Sometimes you just need the cheese, Rolly, she’d whispered into my ear two nights before. I’d wanted to roll her over and pound her into a happily ever after but instead shrugged and crossed my hands over my chest.

How could I have been so stupid?

Veronica loved this shit. It made her smile, so I pretended to sit and watch it with her. My mind filled with so much stuff. How could I want her so much, want to do the things I wanted to her, and have her be my forever? Shouldn’t I treat her with kid gloves? Like precious glass that could break? Because to me, she was treasure.

The movie continued, and the more I watched, the more I got it. Which was funny considering the couple in love didn’t do more than kiss on film. The girl in the movie loved Christmas, and the guy didn’t. She was trying to show him the spirit of the holiday, and he wasn’t convinced.

But I got it.

I also figured out how to get my girl back.

At that thought, I hopped off the couch with a flurry of excitement running through me. Big gesture. Balls out. This would do it! Without a doubt! Grabbing my phone, I went to my computer and searched while I texted my two accomplices.

Veronica was more than a dream. She was a wish my heart had made, and she wasn’t make-believe. She was the woman of my dreams, and it was fucking time she knew it. After tomorrow, she would never doubt again how I feel about her.

With everyone in on my plans and everything ordered online, I went to our room and grinned.

All I needed now was mistletoe.